Josef Gerö

Calling as a football official

The European Cup for National Teams, a forerunner of today's European Football Championship, bore the name of Dr Josef Gerö between 1955 and 1960. It honoured a man who had dedicated his life to football, among other things.

Josef Gerö was born in 1896 in what was then Austria-Hungary. He grew up in Vienna. His passion for football began early on. He initially played for "FC Libertas Wien", a club he founded with his schoolmates in 1914. However, it soon became clear that his true calling was not as a footballer, but as a functionary. This characterised his life, in which he made a career as a lawyer and sports official. The invasion of German troops in March 1938 initially put an end to both careers. As head of department in the Austrian Ministry of Justice and as a "half-Jew", Gerö, who had also been president of the Vienna Football Association since 1927, was targeted by the Gestapo. He was deported to Buchenwald via Dachau concentration camp in September 1938. He was released in July 1939. He fled to Zagreb. There he worked as an authorised signatory and once again suffered repression after the German occupation of the city.

After the war, Gerö continued his dual life as a lawyer and sports official - as Austrian Minister of Justice and simultaneously as President of the Austrian Football Association and the Austrian Olympic Committee. He took on a final office in June 1954 when he was appointed Vice-President of the newly founded UEFA. Six months later, Josef Gerö died in Vienna at the age of 58.